Brotherhood of Silence (place)

The cards say blue sky, one white seagull banks. My intuition tells me salt air, sparkling waves—but it's wrong. The frame is a liar and memories cannot be trusted any longer. You can tell, just by following the golden curlicues around the edges. This gull is a point of light, following a dotted greatequator skyward and returning.

The cards say Moon sleeps well tonight. This is correct. The gull will not encounter Moon. This is good. A long time ago, Moon and the gull met often and were fast friends. Often they experienced intoxication together, celebrating primality and the elements and the hard edges of things. It was cold, but they were happy. But the mountains came down, and the gull's eyes changed. Moon was different. They did not speak then.

The cards say the sea is restless. It is so long gone from this place, but still it presses in on us, as if from every direction but below. The weight of the sky is a feather in air, but a great stone beneath the water. When the water returns, everything will be crushed and undone in its fury. The injustices done to the great resting bones may be forgotten, but the sea is always restless. This is its nature. It grinds bone to silt in nervous anticipation. It beats softly and waits longer than anyone else.

The birds say night is coming. I will not be fooled. Night is already here. But we have made candles from the great beasts of the sea and formed bricks and hardened them with sunlight and stacked houses for ourselves. We are safe from the night. We thrive at the edges of the darkness. Some of us speak to Moon to guide him, keeping their eyes on the frames. They do not listen to the birds or the cards. We are different in many ways. The Moonspeakers loathe the gull. They are extreme, but they are important to us. Moon is very important to us. I am sorry to have bored you with that.

The cards say we have made a horrible mistake. I do not understand these cards. They will say we have made a horrible mistake until I understand what mistake we have made. They are persistent and they know everything. I think the cards were created from the sea a long time ago. There is a story. Before the water fled, the entire world was covered with it. And before that, there was a single lake from which all water came. It is called Glass. It spoke softly to its shores, saying Please wake up earth, saying I am getting ready to cover you with myself, and saying It will not hurt and you will be remade but not lost. The gull heard this, for she is the best listener. Glass took away the roots of the trees, but the trees grew harder roots and taller trunks. Glass overturned stones, but the stones did not mind. Stones are thinking all of the time, and their thoughts last through our lifetimes. Glass covered Moon's home, but Moon turned that piece of Glass into ice so that he could rest on it. Glass was happy, for a while. When it came time to leave, Glass shed tears against the trees. This is why the cards are called Glass's tears.